Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz
In Dantiel W Moniz's new short story collection, the emotional and existential don't transcend the primal; instead they are found deep within it
Two girls mix blood with milk, drinking the bowl dry to cement their porous friendship. A young woman mourns her miscarriage, while another hesitates, bewildered at the new life inside her. A mother attempts to navigate the rift in her family in the aftermath of an almost affair. In Dantiel W. Moniz’s hypnotic collection of short stories, the body is a lascivious, disobedient thing, a crucible for her Black female protagonists’ latent, unspoken desires and fears.
Moniz’s writing crackles with sensuality and the searing heat of the Southern summer, firmly locating every action, every brief thought within the emanations of the tangible world. Surfaces are sticky with salt and sun, food slick with oil, the scent of another person thrumming through the air. In these stories, the emotional and existential have not transcended the primal, they are found deep within it – the complexity of human experience forged in an interiority that is both physical and metaphysical, the body irrevocably entangled with the mind’s delicate business of grief, ambivalence, and want.
There are a few instances where more ambiguity would be welcome, yet Milk Blood Heat is largely notable for its resistance to catharsis, and its bold play with abrupt endings and shorn down perspective. It is particularly effective in Moniz’s exploration of race; offering no pat lessons or easy conclusions, this collection has little interest in catering for a white gaze.